We completed our first playthrough of Returnal in 21 hours and only 13 deaths, which shows that the game may be challenging but it's not impossible to beat by any means. We added a few extra hours to collect the six sunface fragments required to see the real ending (after beating the final boss a second time) and we loved every minute of it. Long story short, it's a great exclusive, it's much more ambitious than anything Housemarque has done before and it deserves its price tag (though we're not too happy that PS5 exclusives have become more expensive this gen). Check out our videos and let us know what you think!
All comments (18)
Returnal's gameplay does look great. Though the issue with the price is a big one for a lot of people, me included. For Americans and people in 1st-world countries, $10 or £10-20 might not be much - value is subjective, after all. But here in Brazil, the price of PlayStation games increased 100 bucks, went from R$ 250 to R$ 350.
On the Brazilian Amazon store, Returnal is R$ 349,90, but since I'm an Amazon Prime member, I get a 10% discount, so the price drops to R$ 315,90 - R$ 34,00 discount.
Amazon Returnal - PlayStation 5:
https://www.amazon.com.br/Returnal-PlayStation-5/d...
Still too expensive, we're talking 1000 bucks more every 10 games, or every 15 games with that 10% discount per game. I know in some countries that's even worse. Thankfully Xbox Game Pass is on PC, and for those who play on Xbox consoles, it's a really great deal, almost essential, to be honest.
Here in Brazil, Xbox Game Pass is R$ 29,99 per month, R$ 44,99 for Ultimate. Though Ultimate is a waste on PC, unless someone really uses those "Deals With Gold" discounts regurlarly. So that R$ 350 Returnal equals to basically 1 year of Xbox Game Pass at R$ 30 per month. 1 game vs hundreds to thousands of games one can play in 1 year.
Sony is selling more PlayStation 5 consoles than Microsoft is selling Xbox Series X/S ones, but when Microsoft starts dropping a lot of exclusive games in 2-3 years - Sony will as well, of course - and these new consoles are more available, it will be interesting to see if the much significantly lower cost of Xbox + Game Pass will tip the scale.
Perhaps not in 1st-world countries, but globally, if Microsoft starts releasing 4-6 "good" 1st-party games every year and leeps at it, as well as keep increasing Game Pass' value, I believe that will make many people go Xbox Game Pass (consoles and PC).
It's Economics, really, most people will choose the best value proposition for them - financially, quality, quantity, etc. I chose Amazon instead of Netflix for this very reason, insanely better value - like 10 times better value at a far lower cost. I drop on Netflix once in a while when there's many things I'm interested on, but Amazon I subscribed for a whole year and will renew for another year. And however long that continues to be the case.
Drift, sorry I went off-topic and talked about Xbox in a PlayStation game's thread - last thing I want is a fanboy/flame war. But I read the part about the price tag and it bothered me a lot, to be honest. Absolutely not your fault, just me.
My country is in a really fucked state at the moment and money has a different value than before, when most people are in really bad situations financially. So now cost x value hits harder than before.
I have no doubt Returnal is an excellent game, I actually wish it was on PC, so I could play it. It's another "homerun" for Sony. And it may indeed be worth of the price, but value-wise there are better propositions like a whole year of Xbox Game Pass.
PS. Just in case you worry, I'm okay financially - even spent almost 300 bucks in a single day on Genshin Impact, though I'm able to - but most folk are in really dire situations, unfortunately.
PPS. That made me sound like I'm dropping money on Genshin Impact like an addict, I swear it was a one-time thing and it was really dumb. But I really enjoyed what I got and am having fun with the game, so it wasn't a waste. Plus if I didn't spent on that, I would probably have spent it on junk food like pizzas and soda, so it's at least healthier, physically speaking. But I would have felt MUCH better donating it to charity. That's where the "really dumb" comes from. Every time I see a news in which people are going hungry, I literally feel like a selfish asshole. Anyway, I hope you're all well there in France. And yes, I do miss those sexy French accents from the livestreams. lol
For example, it could be the best game of all time, that doesn't make it more valuable than hundreds to thousands of games combined. If all of those games were shitty, absolutely. But there are excellent games on Xbox Game Pass - which also includes EA Play, so it becomes a "1 game vs 500-1000 games" value proposition. No single game has that much value proposition by itself.
In case it still isn't clear, I'm not talking about the game, but the fact that if you have X amount of money to spend - in this case, R$ 350 or $70 - and you will spend it in order to play either 1 game or 500-1000 games, the option that gives you more games is the best value proposition. It's the option that gives more value/content for the same amount of money.
I believe you must have seen people complaining about Returnal's price tag over and over, and assumed I was doing the same, I wasn't. As for the price not being an issue to you, it certainly is an issue to most people - specially during this pandemic, where hundreds of millions lost their jobs. I have a very stable income and ain't struggling by any means, but I watch the news and every day I see more and more people in desperate situations.
All of which makes any arguing about the price of luxury items all the more ridiculous, while there are people actually dying of hunger all over this world. This isn't just for you, it's for me as well. And to anyone else doing the same.
Anyway, I hope everyone at GSY and their families are fine. And if you feel like streaming again, that would be cool. I really mean that, I can actually hear your and Blim's voices if try to remember them.
While I joke about the "sexy French accents", I do enjoy hearing your voices. But I know the streams never got enough views to justify all the hassle, like Blim having to drive for a long time to your house, so it's cool if that's all in the past or just for big releases.
As for streams, I know, but since davton has never been comfortable in English and Blim has given up on me apparently, it makes it even less motivating to dedicate time to this.
the issue with the price is a big one for a lot of people
There's zero excuses for these publishers and companies slapping that price tag on a game when there is nothing justifying it, and no, the excuses of "games are expensive to make" is utter bollocks. If anything, the progression of dev tools and engine technology, as well has hardware tech, has made cycles shorter - or should have - and workflows essentially cut right down as software algorithms and systems that weren't there before take care of the nitty gritty processes like optimisation and data compression. Games, if anything, should have gotten cheaper, seeing that they pad their cash flow with the fucking things with all their microtransactions and in game economies that are worth a grand total of fuck all when all is purchased and said and done. They don't even have the excuses Nintendo had back in the late 90's when the cost of producing cartridges and taxes hiked the prices of N64 launch titles. If you are OK with these games costing the shell price (and I emphasis the word "shell" because that's what you'll mostly be getting) then you are part of the problem, and don't be shocked when the fuckers decide to bump the price even further. They do that anyway with all the special and deluxe editions they pump out. This game, for all that it's worth, good game or not, should have been a mid shelf game, because that's what it looks like to me. At the very minimum, 60 dollars, maybe. 70? You're having a fucking laugh. It's not a fully fledged Gran Turismo, Horizon, God of War. It is not an established hitter.
Yes, £70 is a lot of money, but I don't normally get games day 1 anyway, I tend to wait for sales, but I like Housemarque and support Returnal for a couple reasons; firstly, I don't want this game to flop as I want Sony to allow more games like this to be made and secondly I don't want videogame access to be a service where they can add and remove content and nickle and dime it at their whim. Resogun was free at launch, then exmachina didn't sell well and I was surprised Sony backed Housemarque with this game(which is fantastic).
On a side note, I don't get the big song and dance people are making out of old games getting "framerate boosts" on XSX at low resolutions, talk about next gen gaming.lol